Seven years after Elvis Presley died, the King’s legacy risked being remembered more for his troubled final years than the music that changed America. Then January 1985 arrived. What would have been his 50th birthday became more than a memorial. It gave critics, collectors and the public a reason to look beyond the tragedy and … Read more

Colonel Tom Parker could make powerful executives follow his orders, hand over enormous checks and even pay for jokes played against them. Seattle radio legend Pat O’Day witnessed that strange power firsthand after his concert company began promoting Elvis Presley’s tours. Some of Parker’s moves were hilarious. Others left O’Day convinced that Elvis was surrounded … Read more

The National Archives in Washington holds the Constitution. It holds the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Every year, people write in asking for copies of the country’s most treasured documents. And out of every single item in that building, do you know which one gets requested the most? Not one of those.  … Read more

For more than a decade, every time Ann-Margret opened a new show in Las Vegas, the same gift was waiting for her—a floral arrangement, always shaped like a guitar, always from the same man. There was never any confusion about who sent it. Then on the night of August 15, 1977, she walked in for … Read more

Everyone on earth can picture Elvis Presley’s hair. The glossy black pompadour, the sideburns, the curl falling over his forehead. It’s one of the most famous heads of hair in history. And here’s the part that stuns people: it was never real. Elvis was born a natural blond. He dyed it black for nearly his … Read more

It was almost midnight at Graceland on February 1, 1976. Elvis Presley was sitting with two friends, swapping stories, when the conversation drifted to a sandwich one of them had eaten in Denver. Elvis remembered it. He’d had one himself, and he had never gotten over it. Right there, in the middle of the night, … Read more

Elvis Presley performed more than 1,600 concerts in over 240 cities. Every single one was inside the United States. Not one show in London. Not one in Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, or Sydney. Millions of fans overseas bought his records, papered their walls with his face, and waited their entire lives for a ticket that never … Read more